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PUTNEY — A show in which Walter Parks, longtime guitarist sideman to Woodstock legend Richie Havens, joins accordionist Rob Curto has been postponed to curb the spread of COVID.
Heavy demand for free at-home rapid COVID-19 tests on Wednesday temporarily crashed the website for ordering the kits, with more than 150,000 hits to the Vermont Department of Health-hosted site in less than an hour after it opened. By day’s end, however, 350,000 tests had been ordered throu…
MONTPELIER — State officials didn’t mince words Tuesday when addressing the recent spike in COVID-19 cases: It’s a post-Thanksgiving surge, largely driven by unvaccinated people.
MONTPELIER — Gov. Phil Scott on Thursday came out in favor of President Joe Biden’s COVID-19 Winter Action Plan.
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BENNINGTON — Bennington County is among seven Vermont counties rated by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control as having high community levels of COVID-19.
Health officials on Tuesday encouraged Vermonters to get COVID-19 booster shots right up through Wednesday to protect themselves and others as they travel and visit friends and family for the Thanksgiving holiday. Testing for the virus is also recommended, Health Commissioner Mark Levine sai…
MONTPELIER — To relieve some of the pressure on Vermont hospitals caused by a combination of factors, including COVID-19, the state is opening 80 beds at long-term care and rehabilitation facilities, said Agency of Human Services Secretary Mike Smith.
There has been extensive media attention over the past week devoted to mixing of COVID-19 vaccines and booster injections. As expected, those individuals in test trials that received a mix of vaccine types or additional shots have shown no adverse events. The vaccines are safe and interchang…
Governor Phil Scott on Monday lifted all COVID-19 restrictions in Vermont, as the state became the first in the nation to vaccinate 80 percent of its eligible citizens against the novel coronavirus with at least a first dose.
Scott administration officials said Tuesday that the new omicron variant of COVID-19 has not been found in Vermont to date, although cases have been reported in all border states and in Canada.
MONTPELIER — State officials didn’t mince words Tuesday when addressing the recent spike in COVID-19 cases: It’s a post-Thanksgiving surge, largely driven by unvaccinated people.
BURLINGTON — Citing her past Washington experience and commitment to Vermonters, Lt. Gov. Molly Gray jumped into the race for Congress on Monday, saying she’s ready to “fight like hell for Vermont.”
MONTPELIER — Gov. Phil Scott on Thursday came out in favor of President Joe Biden’s COVID-19 Winter Action Plan.
MONTPELIER — State officials are keeping their eyes on a new coronavirus variant known as Omicron as it appears around the world.
Health officials on Tuesday encouraged Vermonters to get COVID-19 booster shots right up through Wednesday to protect themselves and others as they travel and visit friends and family for the Thanksgiving holiday. Testing for the virus is also recommended, Health Commissioner Mark Levine sai…
MONTPELIER — Vermont is leading the country in several COVID-19 vaccination benchmarks from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, including the percentage of population fully vaccinated overall, and fully vaccinated as newly eligible 5- to 11-year-olds and for most residents who ha…
BENNINGTON — Vermont health officials joined national experts Wednesday in voicing concern about the record number of Vermonters and Americans dying from drug overdoses this year, citing increased availability of the deadly synthetic opioid fentanyl, and increased isolation and depression cr…
MONTPELIER — With higher COVID-19 case counts in recent weeks and the holidays on the way, Gov. Phil Scott on Tuesday repeated a refrain heard at many of his news conferences since the start of the pandemic. He encouraged people to wear masks indoors, test for the virus, think about the size…
MONTPELIER — With COVID-19 numbers declining in Vermont and nationally, booster shots being administered for all three vaccines against the virus, and younger children expected to become eligible for shots soon, Gov. Phil Scott sees no reason to reimpose a state of emergency. That announceme…
MONTPELIER — To relieve some of the pressure on Vermont hospitals caused by a combination of factors, including COVID-19, the state is opening 80 beds at long-term care and rehabilitation facilities, said Agency of Human Services Secretary Mike Smith.
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A surge driven by the delta variant is receding in the United States, but officials and experts say that increased transmission during the coming colder months remains a threat and that steady rates of vaccination are key to keeping the coronavirus at bay.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Thursday that about 56% of the U.S. population was fully vaccinated. Providers are administering an average of about 949,000 doses per day, including first, second and additional doses, far below the April peak but higher than the recent Sept. 28 low point of about 625,000, according to a New York Times database.
Surveys from the Kaiser Family Foundation show that vaccine support has been rising out of fear of the delta variant: Almost 40% of newly inoculated respondents said they had sought the vaccines because of the rise in cases, and more than a third said they had become alarmed by overcrowding in local hospitals and rising death rates.
The number of people eligible for vaccinations could also soon increase substantially: Pfizer and BioNTech asked federal regulators Thursday to authorize emergency use of their coronavirus vaccine for children ages 5 to 11, a move that could help protect more than 28 million people in the United States.
The companies say they are submitting data supporting the change to the Food and Drug Administration. The agency has promised to move quickly on the request and has tentatively scheduled a meeting Oct. 26 to consider it. An FDA ruling is expected as early as the end of this month.
Rupali Limaye, a behavior scientist at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health who studies vaccine hesitancy, said that parents’ getting their children aged 5 to 11 vaccinated would be a “huge game changer” because they represent a large proportion of population.
Vaccine mandates have also been taking effect recently, with federal workers and contractors, teachers, health care providers and others compelled to get immunized or risk losing their jobs. Such a requirement for New York teachers spurred thousands of last-minute vaccinations. Tyson Foods reported a 91% vaccination rate ahead of a November deadline, compared with less than half before its mandate was announced in August.
President Joe Biden appealed Thursday for more companies to mandate COVID vaccinations for employees, asking them to take initiative because an effort that he announced last month to require 80 million American workers to get the shot undergoes a rule-making process and may not go into effect for weeks.
A report released by the White House on Thursday sought to show how vaccine mandates had helped persuade more people to receive their shots: Seventy-eight percent of eligible adults have had at least a first dose.
As the country nears colder temperatures that will push many indoors, Dr. Yvonne Maldonado, an infectious disease expert at Stanford, said that the next few months would be critical, but that the combination of increased vaccinations and natural immunity from infections could prevent another catastrophic wave like the one that struck last year.
“Most of us don’t think we’re going to see the terrible surge we saw last winter,” she said. “That was horrific. I hope we never have to live through something like that again.”
This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
MONTPELIER — Acknowledging the challenge in asking an already stretched staff to expand COVID-19 testing in schools, Secretary of Education Dan French emphasized the need to prioritize testing in order to keep students in classrooms and safe settings.
BENNINGTON — While Bennington County’s incidence of new COVID-19 cases remains elevated, new cases in other parts of the state grow even faster, especially among younger Vermonters.
BENNINGTON — Vermont reported 107 more cases of COVID-19 on Friday and has seen its seven-day test positivity rate increase by 0.6 percent, according to figures released by the state Department of Health on Friday.
There has been extensive media attention over the past week devoted to mixing of COVID-19 vaccines and booster injections. As expected, those individuals in test trials that received a mix of vaccine types or additional shots have shown no adverse events. The vaccines are safe and interchang…
MONTPELIER — Students arriving at the University of Vermont for the fall semester must be vaccinated against COVID-19, even if the vaccines have not yet been given final approval by the Food and Drug Administration, officials said Friday.
MONTPELIER — A new scholarship program created with American Rescue Plan Act funds is designed for those who want to gain new skills or try a new career, as well as local employers in need of more staff.
MONTPELIER — With July 4 approaching fast, the governor spent some time encouraging gatherings that were frowned upon earlier in the COVID-19 pandemic.
MONTPELIER — State officials celebrated hitting their desired goal of vaccinating 80 percent of eligible Vermonters with at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine last week, but they’re not giving up on their push to get shots into as many arms as possible.
MONTPELIER — About 2,295 people are living in 1,631 hotel and motel rooms around Vermont as part of the state’s response to housing insecurity during the COVID-19 pandemic, but the number will continue to drop as changes have been made to the General Assistance Housing Program.
Governor Phil Scott on Monday lifted all COVID-19 restrictions in Vermont, as the state became the first in the nation to vaccinate 80 percent of its eligible citizens against the novel coronavirus with at least a first dose.
The state of Vermont is moving closer toward its goal of vaccinating 80 percent of the eligible population, a goal that, when reached, will result in the state lifting all restrictions imposed to cope with the COVID-19 pandemic.
DOVER — Establishments in Dover will no longer need to require masks as they had before as part of the ski resort town’s response to the coronavirus pandemic.
BELLOWS FALLS — Bellows Falls Middle School was scheduled to be 100 percent in-person learning for the first time this school year on Monday, but a confirmed case of COVID-19 changed all that.
MONTPELIER — The state of Vermont could ask the federal government for vaccine in excess of the 25,000 doses a week it currently receives, officials said Friday.